I’m still new-ish to blogging and not sure if I like it or not. Often, it feels like a complete chore. In terms of consistency; I’ve got issues. But some days, it seems incredibly fun and why hadn’t I done this long ago?

In the spirit of blogging (journaling?) I am trying to stick to my 2012 resolution, by leaping off the cliff a bit more and just dashing something off weekly. This is a steep departure when previously I took a week or more to come up with what I hoped would be a really funny, entertaining essay (insert rim shot here.) I’m a bit nervous about leaping weekly and discovering hard landings on a variety of criticisms.

But lookee: I notice as I write this, that I immediately leap toward receiving condemnation and not praise.

So I guess I am paying attention to the feel-good book I’m perusing at lunchtime, which asks: is my glass half empty, or half full?My knee-jerk snarky comeback is “What’s in it?” If it’s full of Pepto-Bismol – clearly the glass is half full if not completely overflowing. Half full of chocolate milk or a Cosmo? Decidedly half empty and soon to be drained.

Okay; stay with me here.

Metaphorically speaking, we each have our very own glass. And suppose, our glasses are pretty much half-filled with the same kinds of stuff: jobs, families, responsibilities, joyful times, mourning, winning lottery tickets, sunsets, etc.

It's starting to seem to me, that the people who are generally happy don’t mind picking out a gnat or two from their glass, and drinking from it anyway. Then, there are the folks like me who go into a tailspin because there’s a bug in my wine; whining about my wine and eventually drinking it anyway but can’t help grexing that it doesn’t taste all that good because of the stupid gnat and should I floss?

Back to your glass. Not only is it half full of God-knows-what; do you even know what it’s made of? Is it clear, where you can inspect everything easily before you sip (and remove the stupid bug)? Or is it ceramic, with a chip? Or even a small, hairline crack that can never be quite repaired and consequently leaks so you find yourself needing to replenish your glass more often than your friends and neighbors? And who out there has a cast iron glass – which seems to be astonishingly resilient to any kinds of bumps and bangs? And, more curiously, what about those people whose glasses have lids – and they never seem to lose the contents of their glass no matter the ups and downs in the road?Okay, now that we’ve all quenched our proverbial thirsts, let's have a go at something to eat, which brings me to today: Fat Tuesday. My husband and I did a quick odds and ends trip to the grocery store Sunday (cat households cannot run out of kitty litter – trust me) and we passed by a display table set up with boxes of something called, “King Cake.” Cake is good, right? And if it’s the King of Cakes, even better? Like Elvis, right?We peer into the box and spy something resembling a large, flat football decorated by a stoned Keebler elf who dabbles in Easter icing for amusement. Then, we read the warning/disclaimer on the side of the box: INEDIBLE OBJECT CONTAINED WITHIN. NOT FOR CHILDREN. A cake not for children? What means this? It then goes on to read that there is a small plastic baby doll “hidden” somewhere within the cake. Apparently, whoever eats the cake and gets the doll, wins a prize.